


Never Mind, I'll Find Someone Like You

by Jester85



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Coma, Love Triangle (sort of), M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Slow Burn, Stucky endgame, Unrequited Love, While You Were Sleeping AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-03-17 08:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13655175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jester85/pseuds/Jester85
Summary: Rescuing an unconscious man from a train is an awkward way to finally get to know your crush.  Being mistaken for their fiancé is even more awkward.





	1. The Fine Line Between Love and Hate

**Author's Note:**

> So this is based on and will at least loosely follow the movie "While You Were Sleeping", but with some bits and pieces of MCU canon and some other divergences mixed in. This starts with one-sided Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, but it will be Steve/Bucky endgame.
> 
> Nobody probably asked for this, but I'm doing it anyway.

While Sam and Natasha might laugh disbelievingly, there had in fact been a time when Steve Rogers did not like Tony Stark.

  
He'd fairly hated him, actually. He'd carried signs and chanted protests with the crowds right outside Stark Industries' oversized tower _(seriously, overcompensating much?)_ , he'd gone on rants to anyone who would listen about the man who did more than any other individual person to proliferate weapons of mass destruction around the globe, the man with the stupid goatee that looked like something a comic book artist dreamed up, the blindingly white teeth and the Italian aviator sunglasses and the three-piece Tom Ford suits and the flashy sports cars and the supermodels on each arm, who laughed when a reporter dubbed him "The Merchant of Death" and joked flippantly that the moniker "wasn't bad".

  
Wasn't bad? Steve had fumed when he'd seen the YouTube video (no he was not "stalking" Mr. Stark, Natasha, he followed the wise adage of "know your enemy"), all five feet and four inches and ninety-five pounds of him practically vibrating with righteous indignation. He'd had half a mind to go marching straight into Stark Tower and give the man a piece of his mind about that.  
So yea, Steven Grant Rogers had _not_ been a fan of Tony Stark.

  
_(shut up, Natasha_ )

  
But then....something changed.

  
First there was the terrorist attack on Mr. Stark's convoy visiting Afghanistan for a weapons demonstration. Steve's first uncharitable thought was something along the lines of "karma's a bitch", when Tony Stark got blown up literally on his way back from striking a cheeky pose for the press while explosions billowed into the sky in the background, but that had been swiftly followed by a flush of shame. He didn't like the man or his actions, but Sarah Rogers had raised her boy better than that. All life was precious....even if Tony Stark didn't seem to think so.

  
As Stark's apparent assassination took over the news cycle, Steve had even felt a teensy bit guilty about how much he'd hated the man.

  
He could admit to feeling the tiniest bit, well....relieved, when Tony Stark turned out to be alive weeks later.

  
Apparently the man had actually built himself some kind of armored powersuit and blasted his way out of the cave where he'd been held prisoner by terrorists, and well, that was pretty fucking bad-ass, Steve couldn't deny.

  
In hindsight, that was probably the beginning.

  
Tony Stark returned home a changed man. Something had happened to him in that cave in Afghanistan. It was a second shocking headline when he disavowed weapons manufacturing, sending his own stocks into a nosedive and his business partner Obadiah Stane (Steve only remembered the name because he thought it was cool) scrambling to put out fires all over the news.

  
It was even more shocking when he completely shut down the weapons development that had been the cornerstone of Stark Industries and shifted those resources to developing new state-of-the-art prosthetics for veteran amputees.

  
To Steve Rogers, whose skinny ass Sam had dragged with long-suffering sighs from half a dozen recruiting stations where he'd tried to sign up under as many fake names, the man might as well have opened a rescue for blind kittens.

And that was before the man started coming through his ticket station.

The first time it had happened, Steve had almost fallen down in amazement. Everyone knew Tony Stark jetted around the world on private jets and a fleet of sports cars, there was no way Tony goddamned Stark just blasted past his window, dropped a token, flashed a dazzling grin behind that comic book goatee and dark shades and was on his way.

Steve was hallucinating. Jeez, he knew he was lonely, but this was a little pathetic.

But then it kept happening. That grin, that suit, that everything, blowing in like a mini-hurricane in the middle of a humdrum day of monotony. A flash of blinding teeth, even a chipper "Hi!", and then he was gone as if he'd never been, like some apparition.

Steve might have gawked ~~a lot~~ a little.

  
Peggy, his supervisor at the metro station, she of the posh British accent and billowy curls and ruby red lips, aka simultaneously the most beautiful and intimidating woman he'd ever met in his life, had chuckled airily and patted his cheek with her impeccably-manicured fingers and waxed poetic about "the fine line between love and hate" and left him blushing furiously.

  
So yes, maybe Steven Grant Rogers ~~was madly in love with and wanted to marry~~ had a tiny crush on Anthony Edward Stark.

  
And he held that tiny crush directly responsible for the strange events that followed.

 

 


	2. (And You May Ask Yourself, Well) How Did I Get Here?

If this was a movie, with the darkly tragicomic tone that Steve Rogers will soon feel his life deserves, it might start out something like this:

A train is barreling toward the camera. There is a sickeningly handsome man laying on the track. His cool shades are askew but still on. Even the single trickle of blood on his forehead is somehow picturesque.

A very tiny man is desperately struggling to haul the handsome but unhelpfully unconscious man out of harm's way, to no avail. They are both on the verge of getting run over.

Cue vinyl record scratch, followed by freeze frame on the tiny man's panic-stricken face.

It has a beanie and oversized glasses and a blond lock of hair fallen down over one side. It screams Hipster Alert.

_(wait, this is gonna be our hero? I thought it'd be the other guy...)_

"Yup. It's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation."

* * *

Nice hook. Steve's film class professor would give it an A.

Of course, if the movie really wanted to go the whole biopic route, it might start out a lot earlier, with a baby, not plump and pink and healthy, no, a frail little half-formed thing in what looks like some kind of quarantine chamber out of a sci-fi movie (Steve actually wishes he could remember this part, because it looks kind of cool).

A distinguished older doctor, probably played by one of those bit part character actors whose face is vaguely familiar but whose name escapes you, walks up to the young couple and solemnly intones a short monologue with lines like "all we can do now is wait" and "even if he climbs this hill, he'll face an uphill battle all his life". It's all very Lifetime Original Movie.

The mom, a skinny redhead, has moisture glistening picturesquely in her eyes, but she's too much of a BAMF to let them fall. "You don't know him", she says, "He'll climb this hill....and then one day, he'll climb mountains."

_(actually the combination of scoliosis, heart murmurs, and asthma don't make mountain climbing a good idea for Steve, but this isn't too far off from what Sarah Rogers actually said, except there was more Irish and more cursing and possibly a call for security)_

(He climbed the hill)

* * *

Of course, it could always go the rom com route, with stock footage of New York City as some generic pop song plays over the opening credits _(please not Taylor Swift)._

A mom and her son scampering through the woods in slow-motion, all sepia-toned flashbacks.

_(Steve remembers exploring in the woods. He just doesn't remember it being this orange.)_

Sarah Rogers wasn't actually the kind of BAMF people are interested in making movies about, she was skinny and frail and swore like a sailor and never did anything most people would call "special". She was only the kind of BAMF who worked twelve hour shifts at the hospital to barely scrape by paying the medical bills for a kid no one expected to make it this far, and somehow still make time for adventures in wild and exotic places.

Well, actually, "wild and exotic" meant Central Park. Looking at it now, Steve can see how it's an oasis in a concrete labyrinth, the city looming up all around on all sides, but as a kid it had felt like they were in the middle of nowhere. Just he and Ma, all alone.

* * *

It could start with a young man in torrential downpour, watching a casket lowered into the ground. That'd be a dramatic opening shot. Professor Coulson might like that one.

_(It wasn't actually raining the day they buried Ma. It was clear and sunny and beautiful, and Steve resented it something fierce. It didn't feel like the world had any right looking so pretty when Ma wasn't allowed to be part of it anymore.)_

* * *

But this isn't a movie, and it doesn't start with any of those. It just starts with a young man hunkered down in his booth on Christmas Eve, with nowhere else to be.

* * *

The only good thing about the morning of token-collecting monotony was it at least gave him time to sketch. The faces went by too quickly for more than a fleeting impression, not enough for the level of the detail of proper portraits he liked, but it kept his hands busy, and more importantly, it kept his mind busy. Kept the happy memories of Christmases past, of hot chocolate and gift-giving with Ma that the cancer had abruptly ended five years back to a dull background ache.

Usually he'd have had the distraction of Natasha laughing indulgently in the seat beside him, Natasha with the fiery red hair and the smile that could shoot a man dead at ten paces, and whom Steve still wasn't completely convinced wasn't a Russian spy. But on Christmas Eve, the station was a ghost town, and Steve was whiling away the solitary overtime hours alone with his sketchpad.

Peggy had been apologetic. "I know it isn't right, and I can't make it do it, but Steve, you're the only one---" She'd caught herself, trailed off and looking a little ashamed, but Steve had just sighed.

"I'm the only one without a family. Got it," he'd mumbled, the pang in his already defective heart making the words come out a little more harshly than he'd intended, and then he caught the flash of guilt in Peggy's eyes, and that just made him feel worse than he already did.

"No, c'mon, Pegs, it's fine. I don't mind, really."

It was ~~partly~~ mostly true. It wouldn't have been fair to his co-workers with families to make them work over the holiday, and honestly with Sam on tour and Natasha out of town, he needed to keep himself busy.

He sat hunched over in his chair, knowing it was bad for his back---the back brace he'd worn all through his childhood had corrected the worst of his scoliosis, but it still pained him a lot of the time---absorbed in gently rubbing his thumb over a sketch of a girl who'd caught his eye, trying to carefully massage the shadow into just the right shading. She looked to be in her twenties, but the pale silvery wisps of her hair were streaked with hints of lilac and lavender. A diamond nose stub caught the sunlight and danced with the sparkle in her eyes.

Steve had been a little entranced, aesthetically if not sexually, and tried to capture her while she was fresh in his mind. He wished to God he'd brought his colored pencils, but he was doing the best he could---

The clink of a token took him by surprise, and he glanced up to be met with Italian aviator sunglasses and dazzling smile shining out from a goatee only one man in the world wore.

_Damn those teeth are white._

"Merry Christmas!" Tony Stark said, and Steve could have sworn the man's eyes sparkled at him from behind those shades. His brain short-circuited a little.

"Hhhh...." he wheezed ( _what were you trying to say? Hi? Happy....? You don't even know_ ), one hand on the intercom, but the man was gone, sweeping down to the platform in his long wool peacoat with a spring in his step, looking expectantly for the train.

Steve fished in his pocket for the reassuring weight of his emergency inhaler. Tony Stark had wished him Merry Christmas. Why was Tony Stark going somewhere on a public train on Christmas Eve, anyway?

Because the universe hates him and just loves to torment him. Obviously.

He snapped out of his funk when he noticed the two sketchy-looking dudes lurking along the edge of the platform and eyeballing Stark harder than he was.

See, you work with the public long enough, and you develop a sort of sixth sense for smelling trouble. And these guys smelled like trouble.

Steve's frown deepened as they came loping up behind the cheerfully oblivious Stark like a pair of predators cornering their prey. Stark finally noticed, spun and flashed them his best grin---and it was quite the grin---but even from here, Steve could see it flicker, grow uncertain, as the two circled around him, playfully flicking his scarf in the air, lightly pushing him between them.

He stood up just in time to see Tony Stark take a tumble off the platform.

"Shit!" He was out and running, ninety-five pounds soaking wet but he'd never been afraid of bullies in his life, Sam had dragged his ass out of enough alleyways to testify to that. The two guys weren't sticking around anyway, they saw the tiny man barreling toward them, and maybe it was the blazing fury in his eyes, or maybe just realizing they'd been witnessed, but they took one look and split in the opposite direction.

Steve eased himself down onto the tracks. Tony Stark lay sprawled halfway across them on his back, coat billowed out around him and a trickle of blood running down his forehead. He looked dead.

_Shit. Shitshitshit._

Steve had no sooner crawled over to the unconscious man then he felt the metal vibrating under his hands.

_Goddamnit. Nonononono...._

"Sir," he wheezed, already feeling his throat clenching, forcing it down, "Mister Stark, can you hear me?"

Train whistle blaring, ground quaking under them.

"Tony!"

_Fuck!_

Steve seized two handfuls of what was surely a very expensive coat and rolled them into the marginal safety of the gap below the platform, train rumbling past and screeching brakes stinging his ears.

"Holy fuck."

Of course, Tony Stark would choose the moment he was sprawled awkwardly on top of Steve to open his eyes. They were dark brown, like hot chocolate, and Steve's heart skipped a beat.

Though that was probably because of the near-death experience.

It was a bit of a shock to suddenly have Tony Stark's face inches from his own, no sunglasses or glass or television screens between them, and Steve just looked at it for a second. This up close, he could see the age, the fine lines and crinkles, but it wasn't any less handsome. Imperfections made people more interesting, more real, gave him more to capture in his portraits.

He belatedly noticed that face was scrunched up in confusion. Steve realized he should probably try to explain the uncomfortably intimate position they were in. "Hi....um..."

Stark faceplanted into Steve's chest.

Well. This might not have quite been the way he'd fantasized about Tony Stark's head pillowed on his chest, but he took a quick puff from his inhaler just the same.

_Sam and Natasha are not gonna believe this._

If Steve could see where he'd be in a few hours, he wouldn't believe it either.

 


	3. We Gotta Get Outta This Place (If It's The Last Thing We Ever Do)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve accompanies Tony to the hospital. Complications ensue.

Steve always hated hospitals.

  
Starting from when he spent half his life in them growing up, and exponentially more once he watched his Ma spend the last of her life in them.

  
He'd tried to come with Tony Stark as they wheeled him on the gurney, because of course he did, the pushy little punk feeling a sense of responsibility toward the man he'd just hauled out from under a train, but of course they hadn't let him come, because he was nothing and nobody, not family or next-of-kin or even a friend, nothing more than the vaguest of acquaintances at best. So he'd had to stand there and watch Stark vanish down the corridor while the doors swung shut in his face like some Lifetime movie about cancer or something.

  
He fingered his pocket for the reassuring weight of his emergency inhaler. His heart was thumping erratically. The painfully antiseptic walls and the too-clean smell made his breath come short. It made him flashback to days of holding Ma's hand, holding it all night because the doctors could take one look at him and see that the term "visiting hours" didn't apply to him, hearing the rhythmic murmur of the machines...

  
"Steve....? Steve!"

  
He blinked, disoriented, like a man startled awake from a nap, caught in some netherworld between the past and present, and the hand waving in his face receded to show the bemused face of Darcy Lewis.

  
As a nurse at this hospital Darcy had, over the years, gotten to know Steve all too well. They even hung out sometimes, and when not in the scrubs she was currently wearing, she and Steve had actually been mistaken for brother-and-sister with their small statures, brown hair, oversized glasses, and penchants for beanies and ratty scarves and coats that screamed hipster. Steve liked Darcy. He really did. But she was best in small doses, and right this minute she wasn't necessarily who he wanted to get cornered by in a hospital corridor.

  
"Heyyyy," she started uncertainly around a cheekful of gum, brow knitted, brunette waves pulled neatly back behind her, eyeballing him like she was a little thrown off by encountering him at the hospital without him being the patient. "You okay?"

  
"Yea," he answered, trying to make his voice come out steady and nearly managing it, "Just....not a big hospital fan."

  
She smiled sympathetically. She knew all too well. "So what brings you here?"

  
Steve sighed inwardly. "How much time do you have?"

  
Darcy's eyes glittered. She was a sucker for juicy gossip, Steve had spent enough time around her and her co-workers to know that. With a quick glance around at the mostly deserted hallway, she took his arm and lightly guided him toward the nearest sitting room. "Actually, it's about time for my break."

  
* * *

  
All things considered, Darcy took it pretty cool.

  
" _Are you fucking kidding me?? Tony freaking Stark?!_ "

  
"Keep your voice down," Steve whispered, but Darcy wasn't done. She bored in like a shark smelling blood, eyes blazing.

  
"Nu-uh. Details. Spill, Rogers. I have access to your confidential medical information."

  
Steve plucked off his glasses and fastidiously cleaned them on his sleeve, feeling his eyes reddening under her intense scrutiny. "I...there's nothing more to tell, Darce. He's been coming through my window for a while, and today, shit just happened."

  
"For a while?? Tony. Stark. Has been coming through your window for a while and you don't think to drop a line to your best gossip buddy?"

  
"I....it's complicated."

  
She fixed him with a dubious glare. "Complicated. Well between you and me, Steven, the only thing that'd be complicated between me and him would be unhooking my bra strap."

  
Steve put his glasses on with a long-suffering sigh. "All I do is take his token, Darcy---"

  
"Oooh, I bet that's not all you'd take from him---"

  
"The most we've ever said to each other is 'hi'. Well....he might have wished me Merry Christmas today, right....before."

  
"Oh my God, he was totally hitting on you!"

  
"I....what?" he fixed her with an incredulous look. "Yea, Darcy, because Tony Stark is gonna give this a second glance."

  
"Uh-uh, we're not playing this game again, you're adorable, and it's not like Stark is so discreet about playing for both teams or banging anyone in sight no matter who or what they are. Get the D, Steven. Be the change you want to see in the world."

  
"Little harder to 'get the D' from someone who's unconscious."

  
Darcy shrugged flippantly. "Or easier." When he gawked at her in horror, she gave an exaggerated eyeroll to the ceiling and loudly popped the gum she'd been chewing. "Kidding, kidding." And then she was grabbing his arm and yanking him down the hallway. "C'mon, let's go reunite you with your fiance."

  
"My what??"

  
* * *

  
The first thing Steve noticed was the machine monitoring Tony Stark's heartbeat, the little squiggly green line crawling endlessly across the screen, and he had to look at the goateed man laying unconscious in the bed to remind himself that it wasn't Ma.

  
The second thing he noticed was that Stark wasn't alone.

  
There were two people hovering over the bed, one a slender, middle-aged black man neatly turned out in an Air Force uniform. His hand was lightly resting on the lower back of the statuesque strawberry blond in the business pantsuit who was leaning over the bed, as if trying to get closer to the man in it.

  
Steve didn't know who these people were, but he suddenly felt like he was intruding on something private and intimate. He spun to sneak back out before anyone noticed his presence, only to find the way was blocked.

  
The first thing he noticed about them was that they were one of those human groups that moved as a unit. They shuffled through the door in an unbroken block of four or five, as if strapped together or posing for a photo.

  
In the lead was a short, plump, pleasant-faced older woman with blond curls and ruddy cheeks who looked like one of those grandmothers who only existed in movies, like the kind who'd invite you in and bake you cookies. Except now she was crying, sobbing practically, wiping frantically with an honest-to-God handkerchief at her red cheeks.

  
"Oh, he's so pale!" she cried to the man behind her, her face scrunched up in so much grief that Steve had to look away to the next person she was talking to.

  
At her back was her presumed husband, who was taller and balding and had an expression of grim determination, like he was keeping a stiff upper lip to cancel out his wife's blubbering. A pair of younger girls were bringing up the rear, both brown-haired and sort of looking alike and talking over each other. The oldest looked Steve's age or maybe older, the younger looked like she was in high school.

  
Steve suddenly felt very cornered. He was trapped in a hospital room with a man he didn't even know, and the man's loved ones were pouring in and he couldn't get out.

  
He cast a slightly desperate glance at Darcy, but she looked to be doing her best rendition of Dr. Grant freezing and hoping the T-Rex wouldn't know he was there.

  
The military man and the businesswoman obviously knew these people, because there was embracing and exchanged words, and Steve thought the din of loud, frantic conversation might short out his hearing aid.

  
"How could this happen, Jim??" the mother and/or grandmother was wailing in the Air Force man's arms, like a scene from a Lifetime movie, the man whispering calm, steady words into her ear.

  
"I'm sorry, you can't come bursting into this unit!" an accented voice came from the doorway, and the group turned as an older man in a white doctor's coat and clutching a clipboard slipped in the door. Steve had the fleeting thought that he looked a little bit like Albert Einstein, only less hair.

  
"We're the family," the patriarch snapped in a gruff voice, placing himself slightly in front of his wife and daughters, as if prepared to challenge this doctor to kick them out. "George and Winifred Barnes, I believe you'll find us listed under next-of-kin."

  
_Next-of-kin?_ Steve frowed in confusion at why some people called Barnes were Tony Stark's next-of-kin, but then the doctor was talking again and _oh thank God_ he had everybody's rapt attention and no one was paying any attention to him and maybe if he pressed just a little tighter against the wall he could melt through it to the other side and get out of this mess.

  
"Ah...in that case, I am very sorry," the doctor apologized quietly in his soft German accent, "Dr. Abraham Erskine."

  
"How is he, Doctor?" Winifred Barnes asked beseechingly, sounding both desperate to hear the answer and terrified of it.

  
"I'm afraid Mister Stark is in a coma," Dr. Erskine answered smoothly.

  
Everyone in the room seemed to implode in on themselves a little bit, and Steve felt sick. These people's pain, it was too much, and he had no right intruding on this, he didn't belong here---

  
"A coma?!" Winifred was gasping, her husband clasping her shoulder firmly, the woman leaning into the touch like she might collapse without it.

  
"On Christmas Eve??" the youngest girl spoke out plaintively, sounding even younger than she was. "This sucks!"

  
"His vital signs are strong," Dr. Erskine was calmly going on in his unruffled tones, but it was questionable how much they were really listening to him at this point, "His brain waves are good---"

  
"Are you a specialist?" the businesswoman finally asked. Her tone was cool, clipped, brusque, all-business, like they were in a boardroom.

  
"We are bringing in the finest experts---" Erskine was assuring a roomful of dubious expressions.

  
Now that the businesswoman was turned around, Steve could see her stoic expression, almost cold but in a brittle sort of way, like thin ice that was about to crack, and he _really_ shouldn't be here.

  
"How did this happen?" George Barnes demanded in that same gruff way, like he wanted to go out and personally hunt down the punks who hurt this....whatever exactly Tony Stark somehow was to these people.

  
In hindsight, Steve wished he'd kept his mouth shut, but these people were shocked and confused and in pain, and Erskine didn't have answers, and if he could give them this one answer then how could he say no, and the words were tumbling out before he could stop them,

  
"Um, he was pushed off the train platform and hit his head."

  
There was a beat of frankly terrifying silence as everyone finally seemed to notice the tiny man in the beanie and oversized glasses and floppy blond hair and a hearing aid trying to disappear into the corner.

  
"And you are...?" It was the businesswoman who spoke first. He had her full scrutinizing, suspicious attention now, and she was almost as intimidating as Peggy.

  
Steve flashed a beseeching glance at Darcy that said say something, but apparently they got signals crossed or Darcy's brain had just finally short-circuited on too much caffeine, because what came out was a horrifyingly flippant hand wave and a "Oh it's okay, he's the fiance."

  
Everyone was staring at Darcy. Steve was staring at Darcy. Then everyone was staring at Steve.

  
The businesswoman suddenly looked more stricken than she had when she found Tony Stark unconscious, almost glaring at Steve in a way he couldn't understand, though he might have had an inkling why.

  
"Um, no I'm the guy who saved his life..."

  
"You saved his life??" the youngest girl asked. " _Dude_."

  
"I thought he fell off the platform," Air Force Man said.

  
Steve was having trouble focusing on all the eyes and questions. "Um, yea, but I jumped on the tracks..."

  
"You jumped on the tracks?" George asked, looking impressed for the first time.

  
"Tony's engaged....?" the high school girl was asking faintly in the background, but no one was paying any more attention to her than to Steve's high, desperate, "N-no, you don't understand---"

  
"Did you know about this?" the businesswoman was demanding of her Air Force companion, who was shrugging and looking a little helpless for the first time.

  
"He's such a busy man...." Winifred was mumbling, half to herself, while George's voice was raising thunderously, " _Too busy to tell his own mother he's getting married??_ "

  
_Mother?_

  
"George, don't yell at him!"

  
"He needs to be yelled at sometimes."

  
In spite of the combination of shock and panic turning the rising din of conversation into white noise, some tiny part of Steve felt a flicker of amusement at the businesswoman's faint, barely audible "You have no idea..."

  
"We need Bucky," the eldest daughter declared firmly, "Dad, Mom needs Bucky."

  
"You text him again, Becca, let him know we're here."

  
_Oh God, there's more of them_ , Steve was thinking faintly, but now Winifred Barnes was advancing on him, weepy and babbling and _oh God_.

  
"I'm terribly sorry," she was saying, as if it was somehow her fault she didn't know her son's (?) nonexistent fiance.

  
"N-no, you don't understand," Steve was stammering, trying desperately to push into the corner where she couldn't get him because _what the fuck am I supposed to do here_ but she wasn't listening, talking right over top of him, " _We haven't seen him for a long time, so we didn't know._.." and then she was wrapping Steve up in the first motherly embrace he'd had in five years, and she was plump and soft and nothing like Ma, but suddenly Steve had a lump in his throat that had nothing to do with the state of sheer terror he was in, and Winifred was still going on, ".... _always hoped he'd settle down someday. We always wanted him to find someone good. I'm so glad, so so glad he found you_."

  
And then she was full-on sobbing in Steve's arms, and the words were like stones in his throat, and all he could do was hug her back.


	4. (I'm) Coming Home for Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve's moral compass is not impervious to the loneliness of a solitary Christmas and the seductive allure of family dinner. With the family of the comatose man whose fiance you're accidentally impersonating.
> 
> And he still doesn't know who this "Bucky" people keep mentioning is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for anyone keeping up with this that it's been a couple months since the last update, but we're getting Christmas dinner.  
> And a wild Bucky appears!

The universe eventually took pity enough on Steve to let him escape the hospital room.

But when the universe's pity came, it was only in short momentary intervals, so when he escaped, it was with a business card in his pocket and a stern invitation that sounded like an order to Christmas dinner at Chateau Barnes.

" _What the fuck were you thinking?_ " he hissed, ninety-five pounds of righteous indignation, once he'd hauled a still disturbingly calm Darcy into a side corridor.

Darcy took the time to pop a large pink bubble.  "Idk, I panicked and I was trying to think of some explanation for what you were doing there."

"And that meant I had to be _engaged?!_ "

Darcy shrugged.  "They believed it."

"Exactly, and that's the problem.  They're _devastated_ , Darce.  Now I have to try to figure out how to explain to them, 'hey ya know when I said I was engaged to your son?  Yea not so much.  My bad'."

"Don't you think it's gone a little beyond that now?  And Stark is comatose anyway, so who's to say you're not engaged?"

"C'mon, Darcy, I can't go on pretending to be someone's fiance, especially someone in a coma."  He wracked a hand through floppy blond hair, then irritably shoved it out of his eyes.  He fingered the business card George Barnes had shoved into his pocket, and it suddenly felt ominously heavy.  "I'm....I'm just gonna have to let them down gently when I show up for Christmas."

"Uh, Earth to Steve Rogers," Darcy cut in, waving a hand in front of his face frenziedly enough to make him flinch in irritation, "You couldn't get the words out in the hospital room, what makes you think you're gonna be able to do it _over Christmas dinner?_ "

Much as the past few minutes had convinced him she'd finally gone totally crazy---granted, a short trip for her---Darcy was suddenly making way too much sense.  It was kinda giving him whiplash.

Steve slowly sank down onto a mercifully available bench as the full force of Darcy's suddenly regained powers of logical reasoning thudded home like the anvil of doom.

"Shit."

*** * ***

Steve decided there was nothing inherently dishonorable about avoiding a situation where there was no victory to be had.

 _Oh yea, since when??_ He could hear Sam's incredulous laugh perfectly.

Which was how he found himself holed up in his tiny silent apartment with a tiny fir tree in the corner starting to drop dry needles onto the carpet, and his cat Captain. 

Steve called him Captain because he was a bossy little shit--- _perfect match for you then_ , Sam's voice rang in his ears---and had mewled angrily at him until he'd dutifully placed a saucer of milk on the floor.

For the moment, his feline overlord seemed appeased by the offering.

But see, it's one thing to tell yourself you're content with spending Christmas alone when you have no other options.

It's another to be fingering a card in your pocket with an address and a standing invitation, and to still feel the phantom tingle of the first motherly hug you've had in five years.

It's its own form of cruelty, really.  Like mocking you with what you can't have.  With the dull lonely ache of your tiny apartment and your pitiful tiny fir tree and a recycling bin filled with TV dinner boxes. 

_No, you need to go over here.  You need to be all alone._

Well, Steve has never been good at following what the universe tells him he can and can't do.

Which is how, despite his best intentions, he finds himself bundled up as best he can in a threadbare coat that's seen too many years and an oversized beanie and ratty gloves, standing on the sidewalk looking up at a two-story Georgian.  There's a poinsettia on the door and golden light and carols drifting out like siren calls, and it makes his heart _ache_.

He can't do this.  This is the most incredibly selfish thing he's ever seriously considered doing in his life.  He has to get out of here.

But the universe loves to torture him, which is the only explanation he can come up with for the sudden manifestation of a tall, dark, and ominous man in a long black leather coat and an honest to God _eyepatch_ who looks like some kind of sci-fi pirate, blocking off his best escape route.

"You must be this _superhero_ I keep hearing about," the man speaks finally after looming in mildly terrifying silence for a beat too long.  His voice is a lazy drawl and not unkind, though somehow it doesn't make him much less intimidating.

"Me?  That's....I'm definitely not a superhero, trust me," Steve stammers, not really sure what he's supposed to be saying here.

"Oh, don't sell yourself short, son.  Jumping onto the tracks and dragging Stark's lazy ass out from under a train?  Sounds pretty heroic to me."  The man grins then, a glint of very white teeth in his dark face.  "Nick Fury.  Stark's godfather."

"Steve Rogers..."  Steve shakes the man's hand a little warily, still not convinced he shouldn't be taking the title of _Godfather_ in more ways than one.

"So you're the fiance," Fury says, with an odd emphasis on the key word, and Steve suddenly feels like he's in an interrogation room.

"Uh....yeah, looks that way."

Fury stares a beat too long again, and Steve has the unnerving feeling this man can somehow see straight through him and already knows everything.  "Alright, let's get inside.  I'm freezing my ass off out here."

Steve walks into the golden light like a man being marched to his execution.

Except, on the admittedly rare occasion he's imagined his theoretical execution, he hadn't imagined there being a row of stockings hanging neatly over a crackling fireplace, or a large bundle of presents scattering the floor beneath a large tree, or the warm glow of tinted wood floors.

The Barnes home is large and lavishly-appointed but somehow manages to not seem opulent about it.  It's a palace compared to his rathole apartment---though honestly it's only a mansion by comparison---but....it feels homey.  It feels warm.  It feels _cozy._ It looks like one of those homes that only exist in Lifetime Christmas TV movies about a kid who befriends a magic snowman, or something, and Steve isn't sure how to deal with it.  It's a bit of a sensory overload, like being thrust into blazing sunlight after being locked in a dark room for years.

The statuesque strawberry blond from the hospital comes down the mahogany staircase, looking more elegant and graceful and less sharp edges now that she's changed from stalking corporate hallways in a severe pantsuit to a sleek navy blue evening dress.  Her hair spills in billowy curls down her back.  Her face is still a little hard, but a good deal less borderline hostile than their first meeting.  She glides up to him, towering over him. 

"Hello, Steven," she greets in a coolly pleasant voice, the voice he guesses she uses for meets and greets with clients instead of the clipped interrogative hospital room voice that's probably for cutting adversaries down to size.  "We haven't been formally introduced.  I'm Virginia Potts, but everybody calls me Pepper." 

She flicks a self-deprecating head toss at her strawberry hair, and Steve smiles with a little release of tension.  "Ma'am," he offers his hand, because Ma raised him right, even with women he finds thoroughly intimidating.

Miss Potts rolls her eyes.  "Oh, don't call me Ma'am, I already feel old enough with you and Tony's sisters.  Pepper will do, Steven...Steve?"

"Steve is fine," he nods earnestly, feeling like it's too familiar, like he doesn't deserve being welcomed into these people's lives, however peripherally, but letting her set the tone.

"Steve," Pepper says more earnestly, "I apologize if I gave you a....frosty reception at the hospital.  I'm afraid I was totally blindsided both by Tony's accident and by finding out he has a _fiance_ ,"---and was Steve imagining the pained note that word put in her cool tones?---"And now thanks to the clause Tony set in place the last time he was....incapacitated, I'm also suddenly trying to find my footing running Stark Industries until he wakes up.  So, as I'm sure you can imagine, this has all just been a little....overwhelming, and coming on Christmas hasn't made any of it easier."

She's being _apologetic_ to him.  This stern businesswoman is opening up to who she thinks is her boss' fiance, and being apologetic to the man worming his way into her and her loved ones' lives.  And from the pained way she called him Stark's "fiance", and the determination she put into stating "when he wakes up" as a definite, not a maybe, he's getting a sneaky suspicion she's still guarding some things, and those things have to do with Mr. Stark.  Steve has to glance down for a moment, sure the guilt is too obvious in his eyes.  He can't keep this up.  What the hell made him think he could do this?

"Ma'am," he starts, finger digging into his pocket for his inhaler, because the only thing that could make this inexcusably belated confession more humiliating is collapsing in a wheezing fit halfway through, "I---"

 _"Steven!"_   The chipper voice comes from behind him, from the kitchen, and he whirls, caught off guard, to see Winifred Barnes coming at him, just as much of an unstoppable force as the hospital room, except now all smiles and rosy cheeks, arms wide open, and Steve has a moment to start to emotionally brace himself before he's all wrapped up in a hug again, and he's shamefacedly not quite unselfish enough to not close his eyes and rest his chin on her shoulder for a moment and, just for this fleeting second, let himself _feel_ it and pretend he has any right to any of this.

"I'm so glad you came, sweetheart," Mrs. Barnes says when they part, like they've known each other longer than a day, "We worried you weren't coming."

Steve coughs to clear the lump in his throat.  "Well, I---"

"Oh Steven, dear, you came in that thing?" she asks with a horrified assessment of his threadbare coat and ratty gloves with fingers poking through.  "You'll catch pneumonia walking around like that!"

Steve feels a faint flush of shame, but it's nothing compared to when she whisks away and returns seemingly a second later, and suddenly he's being bundled up in a woolly black peacoat not unlike the one Stark fell in, that probably costs more than he makes in a month. 

"Mrs. Barnes, no," he protests in sudden mortification, "I couldn't---"

"Oh hush," she tsks, "It was Becca's, but I'm afraid she's outgrown it"---and wow, that didn't do wonders for Steve's sense of manhood---"We can't have you freezing to death on Christmas, can we?  I'm going to give Tony a talking to when he wakes up, letting his own fiance catch cold..."

Her bubbly voice catches a little, as if she's suddenly remembering the reason _why_ Tony isn't here---the only reason Steve is getting away with any of this---and she looks a little lost for a moment.

And Steve wants nothing more than to put the smile back on her face, so he forces a smile that he hopes looks convincing, and says, "I'm sure you'll get the chance soon, Mrs. Barnes."

Her eyes are a little glassy when they flick to his, but she combs a hand through his floppy blond locks, and it strays down to cup his cheek, and the motherly touch is so familiar, and so missed, that he can't help but lean minutely into it.

"I'm sure I will too," she says, once she apparently trusts herself to speak.  "And _Winnie_ will do fine."

*** * ***

Growing up with a single mother, Steve was aware in a vague, abstract sort of way that families like this exist, but he's never gotten the chance to observe the phenomenon up close before.

The dinner table is big but not ostentatiously so, decorated with candles and a large centerpiece and red tablecloth.  They're large, rowdy, and raucous, all talking all over each other in a din of multi-layered conversation that he's worried is going to short out his hearing aid, but somehow it's warm and cozy instead of being overbearing.  He can taste the easy familiarity, the sense of family.  It hangs so thick in the air he could reach out and touch it.

_Except you don't really have the right to._

 

But of course, he is the shiny new toy, and his presence will not pass by unnoticed.

"So, Steven," George asks around a bite of crescent roll, "How did you and Tony meet?"

"George, let him get a little food in him before we bombard him with questions," Winnie interjects, "The poor boy needs it."

"Food deprivation can be conducive to prisoner cooperation," Fury chimes in from the end of the table, and Steve does not want to know why that's information he's offering.

A hand clasps his briefly, and Steve starts, turning to see the smiling, sympathetic face of Becca.  "Don't let them terrorize you.  Tony really should have prepared you for us before you had to endure the Barnes Family Christmas baptism of fire."

There's a round of self-deprecating laughter, though like the rest of the bubbly holiday cheer, there's something a little forced and strained about it. 

Steve looks down at his hands.  These people don't deserve this.  And they don't deserve him worming into their lives.

"Ah ah ah," Bailey pipes up from Becca's other side, the youngest, eager for juicy gossip, "Don't let him wriggle out of answering the question, you guys."

There's more chuckles, but she's also redirected everyone's attention to Steve, who is still looking at his hands. 

Winnie must pick up on his trepidation, though without knowing the reason for it, because she starts, hesitantly, "If....if it's painful for you, dear---"

"He came through my ticket station," Steve blurts out, "At the metro."  And damn it, now that he's started talking, he can't seem to talk.  He pours out the whole pathetic story about crushing on the man who swept by like a mini-hurricane, the whole table chuckling knowingly at the description, all aviators and blinding white teeth ("They're caps," George helpfully supplies, "$600 bucks a tooth"), until one day their eyes met, the mischievous twinkle in Tony's eyes visible even behind his shades, and said "Hi".

Except Steve's mouth has run away with him, and in this version, he gets a hand on the intercom before Stark is gone like a fart in the wind, and he says "Hi" back.

Everyone seems to find it endearing.

Steve is in deep.

At the end of the table, Nick Fury watches in silence.

*** * ***

Steve might not be the best talker, but he is a good listener.  Enough that, by the end of dinner, he's gleaned enough to know that George and Winifred adopted Tony after his parents, brilliant inventor and industrialist Howard Stark and his wife Maria, were killed in a car accident in 1991, and Tony opted to keep his family name due to its associations with the family company.  Steve already knew about Stark's parents, which was well-known public knowledge, but Tony kept the Barnes' relation to him quiet to spare them publicity and the prying media eye.

Conversation moves on, Bailey having to answer interrogative questions about her grades, the Barneses gently inquiring how Pepper is doing finding her feet as Tony's interim placeholder steering the ship of Stark Industries, and eventually everyone getting mildly sloshed on eggnog.

He tells himself it will all be over soon when Tony wakes up, and he might as well enjoy it before they all hate him, drowning his nagging guilt in eggnog and a fuller stomach than he's had in a long time.  He lets himself fall into this gently smothering cocoon of warmth, listening pleasantly to George and Fury having some sort of convoluted argument involving the heights of actors and somehow branching out to cover Spain, Nazis, the best countries for beef, and whether Cesar Romero played the cello (Fury is adamant that he did not, and Steve doesn't put it past the man to have dossiers on everyone in the world, to he's inclined to take his word for it, though this is bizarrely some sort of contentious sticking point for George).

"Bucky plays guitar," Bailey chimes in at one point, the name jogging a vague memory of also hearing it mentioned in the hospital.

_Ah, the elusive Bucky._

"Bucky likes to _pretend_ he plays guitar," Becca shoots back indulgently.

"Oh, you haven't met Bucky!" Bailey exclaims to Steve, who shrugs a little helplessly.

"You'll like him," Becca insists, and Steve has no choice but to take her word for it, not totally convinced this "Bucky"---what kind of name is _Bucky_?---isn't some imaginary friend, considering he's yet to clap eyes on him either in the hospital or at Christmas dinner.

*** * ***

In hindsight, he may have overindulged a little. 

As Sam and Natasha never fail to teasingly remind him, he can't hold his liquor---of course, it taking about ten minutes to drink his body weight doesn't help---and he finds himself being tucked in on the couch by Winnie, who's obviously had every switch flipped on her motherly circuit-board.  

It's a combination of tiredness, drunkenness, guilt, and being mothered more in the past few hours than he has in five years, but Steve starts to tear up, to his horror.

Winnie's fussing hands, pulling the blanket up to his chin, pause, and Steve squeezes his eyes shut because this is it, he isn't even going to get a full night of this, but he's already had more than he deserved, and he forces his eyes open.  "Winnie...." he starts shakily.

"Oh, honey," she sighs sympathetically, cupping his wet cheek, "I know.  We're all upset about Tony, I promise.  Don't let the caroling fool you," she adds with a self-deprecating eyeroll.

She thinks he's crying about _Tony._ And, in a way, he is, but she is so wrong, and _this_ is so wrong, but he can't get the words out of his throat because her eyes look sad again, and Steve doesn't want to be the cause of making them look sadder, so in the end he just stares sorrowfully up at this warm, maternal woman who's fussing over an imposter in her home, and she pats his cheek and tells him to have a good night.

And finally, left alone with his thoughts in the dark, Steve lets himself cry for a little bit before falling into an uneasy sleep.

*** * ***

 

Steve isn't sure what time it is when the crash startles him awake, but it still looks dark. 

Someone is cursing from the front doorway, obviously having bumped into something in the dark.  A man's voice, and definitely not George or Fury.  Steve stays where he's at and wills stillness.

A second voice, shushing the newcomer.  Bailey.  "Bucky, shh, don't wake Steve."

The man again.  "Who the hell is _Steve_??"  He sounds bewildered, still talking a little too loud.  Like one probably should be to find your adopted brother's fake fiance trespassing on your couch.

" _Shhh.  He's Tony's fiance._ "

" _What?_ Tony doesn't have a fiance _._ "

"Well we just had Christmas dinner with him, and he's sleeping right over there, so _obviously_ he does."

Bucky huffs in the dark, sounding ominously close to the couch.  "Good of him to tell us these things."

"I'd have thought you'd at least have known, you spend more time with him than we do---"

"Becks, I told you, that's just in the lab.  You know I love Tony, but let's be real, he's best in small doses..."

The voices are drifting away now, traveling up the staircase behind and above the couch, and Steve chances a tiny peek.  It's dark, and at a bad angle, but there's a pair of scuffed boots, and higher, long legs clad in tight black jeans hugging an ass that even at this angle and bad lighting is none too shabby, a leather jacket and weirdly a glimmer of silver, and then Bucky is gone.

*** * ***

Steve decides discretion is the better part of valor---somewhere, Sam is laughing uproariously at all these newfound beliefs Steve is suddenly exhibiting---and tries to discreetly slip out the door before anyone is awake.

Which is why, when a lazy voice, rough with sleepiness, drawls "Mornin'", he about jumps out of his skin.

Bucky Barnes---he presumes---is perched casually on the kitchen counter in a white T-shirt and those black jeans that look tight enough to have to be peeled off of him like a sausage skin.  His hooded eyes look bleary, like he didn't get much sleep, and there's faint stubble, and his hair is tousled in a way that manages to look artfully disheveled instead of the wild bedhead Steve is pretty sure he's sporting.  He looks to be about Steve's age or maybe slightly older, and....his left arm is a prosthetic.  And not a run-of-the-mill prosthetic, but some sci-fi Terminator arm, some kind of shiny silver titanium alloy with metal plates, so he looks like he's wearing a foil sleeve.  Steve wants to draw it. 

"Like what you see?" Bucky asks, and Steve realizes belatedly he's been staring.  He flicks his gaze back up, and finds a smirk on Bucky's lips.  He kind of wants to draw it too.

"I'm sorry," he stammers, shamefaced.  "I didn't mean to---"

"It's alright," the man shrugs off easily, "Least you got your fill right from the get-go, instead of dragging it out stealing tiny glances and wasting both our time."  He hops lightly down from the counter, and Steve tries to not stare at his stubble or the T-shirt stretched across his chest as he offers his flesh hand.

"James Barnes, but if you call me anything other than Bucky, you'd be the first."

Steve is a little confused, but he shakes without question.  Bucky's grip is warm and firm.  "Steve Rogers."

Bucky has a great smile, more subdued and not as flashy as Tony Stark's, but maybe a little more real.  "Welcome to the Barnes-Stark clan, Stevie.  Want some coffee?"

Steve is too busy trying to clamp down his blush at the nickname rolling casually off Bucky's tongue to respond right away, but when Bucky raises an eyebrow, he stammers, "Uh, thanks, but I've gotta get going."

"To the metro station," Bucky finishes.  It's not really a question. 

Great.  Bucky has obviously been asking about him.  "Home, actually.  Feed my cat, fix some breakfast."

Bucky runs his metal fingers through his hair, either completely oblivious to the way his T-shirt rides up and shows just a tantalizing glimmer of toned abs or doing a very good impression of it.  Steve averts his gaze, feeling heated all over.  _You are impersonating his brother's fiance, you do NOT get to ogle him while you're at it!_

"Well I wouldn't want to keep you away from your cat, but if you stick around for just a bit, Ma will be happy to whip you up some pancakes or something."

"I've really imposed on you guys enough already," Steve says, and it feels like the first honest thing he's said all night.

Bucky flashes that warm, easy smile again, and Steve sees an ever-so-slight echo of Winnie.  "Stevie, I think you'll find we don't really mind being _imposed_ on.  And I hate to break it to you, but if you're set on marryin' Tony _and_ joining this madhouse, you're gonna have to get over being so damn polite all the time."

"Sorry," Steve says automatically, then realizes he probably just fell straight back into the trap, "It's how my Ma raised me, I guess."

Bucky leans back against the counter, hot coffee cup in metal hand.  "Yeah?  Well from what I can see so far, I guess she did a pretty good job.  We gonna meet her at the wedding?"

Steve looks down at his shoes to hide the pain.  Even after five years, it can still almost surprise him sometimes.  "She, uh....she passed away five years ago."

"Ah, shit, Steve, I'm sorry," Bucky offers, and he sounds sincere, not like he's just saying it because he feels like he has to.

"It's okay," Steve says in a small voice.  Awkwardly shifts his weight to one foot.  Shifts it back.  "I, uh....I guess I'll see you around, Buck."

The last thing he sees before he makes his fumbling escape from the kitchen, and from the Barnes household, is Bucky's lazy wave.

By the time he gets out on the sidewalk, his face is red with embarrassment.

_So it wasn't enough for you slither into somebody's Christmas dinner, you're gonna ogle their son while you're at it?  You are not the person you thought you were._

It wasn't until he was safely tucked inside a taxi heading back home that he realized he hadn't said goodbye to Winnie, and he'd also said he'd see Bucky around.

_You have to tell them.  Next time.  And then they'll hate you.  Bucky will probably punch you in the face with his Terminator arm and take your damn head off._

It'd be no less than he deserved.  He'll tell them.

Next time, he'll tell them.

 


End file.
